Resistance as a vital feedback mechanism for effective change
Rather than perceiving resistance as an obstacle to overcome, leaders may find that shifting perspective to seeing resistance as a natural phenomenon that escalates with emotional investment can offer an opportunity for tapping resistance as a feedback mechanism that fosters effective and lasting change. Klein (1969) alluded to this perspective when he noted that inconvenience, fear, insecurity, and momentum are not the only reasons people resist change. People might also resist because something is important to them and they care enough to protect their interests. Applied in an organizational environment, this means that resistance can be a sign that employees are interested in preserving and strengthening the company. Toby and Manning (2009) helped to illuminate how this emotional investment can be a source of fast and lasting change if managed properly.
In seeing resistance as a feedback mechanism, leaders can also broaden insight to the systemic factors that may contribute to or cause resistance, rather than restrict efforts to overcoming resistance that they may not understand. Taking a systems perspective can help leaders identify legitimate reasons for adjusting change initiatives. People might resist because management has used the wrong change strategy. Attempting to force change without engaging those responsible for the change is likely to trigger shock and anxiety that could doom the change effort. People might also resist because they have legitimate concerns about the viability of the change initiative. For example, new management may be attempting to implement change similar to a failed change attempt by prior management.
People may also have resistance to the change team, who they could perceive as self-interested outsiders who care little about the employee’s needs. Observing how employees interpret and respond to the change team could be vital feedback for helping management know whether to take a different approach. Employees also could resist because they know something about the process that management has not identified. For example, employees may have experienced a similar failed change attempt with prior leadership or might know about policies and laws that inhibit the proposed change.
Case: Entrenched bureaucracy embraces status quo
For example (author, personal experience) from personal experience, a new commander of a military base [undisclosed] developed a proposal to offer doctoral-level programs to active duty personnel through the educational services function under her command. The commander asked the educational service officer, a civilian, to implement the plan. The ESO resisted to the point of obstinacy, knowing that the commanding officer could not fire him because he was a civilian. He confided that he would “just wait out” the commander because the military leaders rotate every six to twenty-four months.
Something else he did not tell the commander was why he resisted: he knew of a military policy that specifically prohibited the change the commander wanted to implement. By withholding such information, he hoped to put the commander in an embarrassing position of escalating an order for a prohibited program. The commander fell into the trap. Interpreting the resistance as a hurdle, she escalated assertiveness to push the program. Had the commander considered the resistance as feedback rather than opposition the commander may have been able to discover the reasons for the resistance while illuminating the political dynamics that contributed to her short tenure and the continuance of the status quo.